


Pride & Providence

by janeofarc



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (1984 TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings Realization, Fluff, Graphic Description of Injuries, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Mutual Pining, Post-Reichenbach, Pride and Prejudice References, Story: The Adventure of the Empty House, my apologies to jane austen, nothing too horrible though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-23 23:04:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14943032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janeofarc/pseuds/janeofarc
Summary: Holmes and Watson return to Baker Street after the arrest of Colonel Moran and deal with the aftermath of Holmes' dramatic return from the dead.“I am still angry, Holmes, but I meant it when I told you this afternoon that I never was happier to see anyone in my life—dear God, I missed you so.” He smiled faintly and placed his hand over mine which still rested upon his knee; we sat in silence for what felt like a very long time. Our hands pressed together felt strange and new but yet inevitable, as if they had always been that way, and my fingers ached to grab hold of his own, to press them to my chest and hold him there forever.





	Pride & Providence

**Author's Note:**

> This was intended to be a tiny fluffy little thing where Holmes said the love confession quote from Pride & Prejudice to Watson, but this is me we're talking about, so obviously things got out of control. Enjoy!

For the second time that day I heard a sound I had thought never to hear again—the click of the closing door at the Baker Street quarters which Sherlock Holmes and I had shared. An April fog curled itself around the windowpanes and I stared for a long moment at the well-remembered rooms, adorned (most improbably) by Holmes himself, who had been back from the dead, at least from my perspective, for all of twelve hours.

We stood together in our rooms, breathing heavily, eyes fixed on the wax bust that had fulfilled its purpose through its own destruction; the gleam of the bullet shining in the waxen forehead sent a thrill of fear through my heart. I threw myself bodily into my old chair and buried my face in my hands to compose myself and then stared blankly at the flames in the grate as my companion stoked the fire half-heartedly, his back turned. My reverie was broken as Holmes stretched himself back to his full height and a gasp of pain escaped his lips as he straightened his back. I sprang from my chair, cursing my own inattention as visions of Holmes’ struggle with Moran flashed back into my memory.

“My dear Holmes, you are injured!” I cried, approaching him where he stood by the fire. “Allow me to examine you, to do what I can to ease your discomfort.” 

“I am fine, Watson, I assure you,” Holmes replied briskly, attempting to hide a slight croaking to his normally clear voice and stubbornly refusing to look at me. His words stung, and I wondered for a moment why he had come back to me at all, if only to scorn my attentions and refuse my assistance, but I dismissed the thought quickly as sentimental and rather dramatic. I drew in a long breath and tried again.

“Please,” I said softly. “I am only trying to help.” Holmes heaved a great sigh and turned around, his proud features molded into a veneer of disinterested calm as his eyes met mine with cool indifference.

“Very well, Watson, if you insist,” he said airily, dropping into his armchair and looking at me expectantly. I picked up my kit and kneeled in front of him, trying not to gasp when I saw the purpling finger marks which circled Holmes’ throat, reminders of Colonel Moran’s vicious and merciless strength. I pressed at the bruises gingerly, feeling for strained muscles as my hands worked their way around his neck. Holmes sat still as a statue, watching me, and I felt blood rush to my cheeks under his minute attentions. 

“These must be very painful, Holmes,” I said quietly, pulling my hands from his neck and examining him for signs of concussion—noting the dark circles under the icy grey eyes and the petechiae dotting his otherwise pale face. 

“I have had worse,” Holmes replied blankly, not looking at me. His prideful insistence on independence frustrated me, and I sighed rather more wearily than I had intended and turned away, reaching for a salve I carried in my kit. I felt his eyes on me as I searched for it, but I did not look up until I had found what I was looking for. I applied the balm gently to his throat and around his eyes, set it down again, and made to stand up, clapping his shoulder lightly as I did so. 

At my touch Holmes, apparently startled, let out a violent hiss of pain which ended in what could almost have been a soft whimper and he turned suddenly to look at me, eyes wide and bright with panic. 

“Holmes!” I cried, shocked. He continued to stare at me, saying nothing, and I thought of his struggle with Moran and could think of no point when he had been hit on his back or shoulders. 

“What has happened to your back?” I said lowly, attempting to be soothing by carefully controlling the fear in my voice. 

“Nothing,” Holmes returned hotly. “I was merely…surprised when you touched me, I was not expecting it.” He stood up and made to stalk off to pick up his violin, but I seized him by the wrist and made him stop. 

“Holmes, I have spent far too long studying your methods—and decades as a physician besides—not to recognize when someone is attempting to conceal their injuries.” His face flushed but he said nothing, eyes fixed upon the floor in an apparently minute study of our carpeting. I let my hand slide from his wrist to his forearm where he held it stiffly between us and I stared at him until he finally met my gaze. 

“Why are you keeping this from me?” I muttered, failing in my endeavor to keep my fright from reaching my voice. 

“Once again, my dear boy, I have attempted to do what I thought best and once again, it seems, I have managed to do it all wrong,” he said ruefully.

I blinked at him, surprised. _Once again? Done it wrong?_ I had little clue what he was talking about, but I swallowed my questions and saved them for a more opportune time, I could see how much it had already cost him to make that strange admission. 

“You have not done anything wrong, Holmes,” I soothed, my hand still on his arm. “I only wish to help you; you are hurt and I hate to see you so.” 

“If you are certain,” he said strangely, his features twisting unhappily as he regarded me with the same puzzled interest he usually reserved for murders. It unnerved me but I nodded despite my misgivings, perfectly genuine in my expressed desire to help him. 

As I stood there, lost in thought, he had turned his back to me once again and begun to remove his jacket and waistcoat and was struggling with the buttons on his shirtsleeves when he uttered a soft oath and drew my attention once again. I gasped when I saw crimson blood dotting the thin white cotton covering his back and his shoulders but bit down on the cry that threatened to escape me, not wishing to further agitate my friend. He threw his garments without ceremony to the floor and for a moment all I could do was stare.

Dozens of wounds littered Holmes’ back, ranging from shiny pink scars, faded now into the background, to deep gashes that could not be more than ten days old, bordered by the remnants of snapped stitches, the largest of which was bordered by a steady drip of dark blood. I followed the largest gash around the curve of his shoulder blade where it ended with another mark of a variety I was all too familiar with—a mottled crater on his right shoulder, skin smoothed to glistening white by powder burns and thin clipped marks made by the tip of a knife as it removed the bullet.

“Oh, Holmes,” I said softly, quite without thinking. I saw his head droop briefly towards his chest before it snapped upright again, but he said nothing. I reached again for my kit and began wiping at the blood that was leaking from the more recently acquired gashes and set about preparing my suturing thread to repair a particularly ugly wound on his shoulder—the one I had inadvertently set my hand upon a few minutes before. He sat stock still, seeming to me more and more like his waxen bust which still lay, mangled, upon the carpet. I cleaned a suture needle, threaded it, and then paused, placing my hand upon the only unmarked skin I could find, at the back of his neck. 

“Shall I get you a brandy before I—”

“Pray, Watson, let us just get this whole business behind us,” he interrupted impatiently. “I have no doubt this will be preferable to doing it myself.” I watched him shake his head minutely, irritated and far-away, and I had the strong impression that he had not intended to say the second sentence aloud.

“As you wish, Holmes,” I replied, and I set about my stitching, trying to dislodge the image of Holmes craning his neck, perhaps in a mirror, bruised and suffering as he endeavored to close his own wounds. He flinched when the needle first pierced his skin but remained otherwise still as I worked. I think I felt the sting of each stitch nearly as acutely as he; every pass of my needle further impressed upon me the suffering Holmes had undergone alone while he was away—a knowledge which did not mesh well with the tale of Tibetan meditation and French laboratories I had heard that afternoon.

“I suppose if you wanted to tell me what it was that you were really doing, Holmes,” I said quietly as I placed a bandage over his fresh stitches, “you would have done so already. For even I am capable of deducing that you have most certainly not spent the last few months conducting chemical researches in Montpellier.” I attempted to sound sympathetic rather than bitter, but I am not certain that I succeeded.

Holmes turned to me hesitantly, plucking his dressing gown from the waxen bust of himself that lay at his feet and throwing it around himself as he met my gaze, defiant even in defeat. 

“I have done it all wrong,” he said sadly, echoing what he had said when I first discovered the wounds. “I meant to spare you, Watson, but it seems I have only made things worse.” 

“I do not wish to be spared from the truth, Holmes!” I retorted hotly. “And besides, three years is quite enough time to have been left in the dark.” I felt a stab of regret at the flash of hurt I saw in his eyes, and I knelt before him once again, softened. “Will you tell me what you were really doing these last three years?”

“As I have told you, my troubles were far from over when Professor Moriarty lay at the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls,” Holmes said, the sadness in his voice slowly overpowered by the tone of keen interested which was its usual character when discussing a problem. “But in the instant I decided to conceal my survival, it was not my own safety that weighed most heavily on my mind, but rather yours.” 

“My safety?” I cried incredulously. “What danger was there to me?” Holmes closed his eyes as if in pain when he observed my shocked expression, taking a moment to compose himself before continuing his explanation. 

“I had to finish locating Moriarty’s many confederates, that much was certain—having gone so far into the matter, neither of us would be safe until his criminal association had been completely dissolved. But it occurred to me that, if the world believed me dead, my two most pressing problems would both be neatly solved. I could eradicate a ring of dangerous criminals, no doubt a great service to civilized society, and you would be completely innocent of the affair, free to return to your life without the target on your back placed there by your association with me.” 

“But why leave me in the dark? One word, Holmes, was all I needed!” I was moved by his concern for my safety, but it was clear to me that he did not understand the true extent to which his loss had pained me. He looked at me for a long moment, his eyes unreadable and distant. 

“I told you this afternoon that I declined to tell you I was alive for fear that your affectionate regard tempt you to provide me with some sort of comfort which would give me away—I am afraid, Watson, that it was rather the other way round.” 

“I don’t understand,” I replied blankly, my mind seeming to grind to a halt. 

“I did not tell you, Watson, because I feared that if I contacted you, my regard for you would tempt me to an indiscretion which would give away my position—or worse, would lead those I pursued to turn their unwelcome attentions upon you instead of me. No outcome could have been worse than that.” He paused, watching me, looking for a clue as to my feelings, and I reached out and placed a hand on his knee, unable to speak. He seemed reassured, and continued. 

“I wanted very much to tell you, but the calculation was an easy one: my wish to have the the aid and companionship of my friend was not worth your life. I am sorry for the pain that I caused you, but I cannot regret actions which may have safeguarded your life.” 

“Holmes I—I do not know what to say,” I blurted honestly, still somewhat shocked. I squeezed his knee gently. “I am still rather angry that you let me believe you were dead—and I believe I still have some right to be—but…” He was watching me with a bizarre expression upon his fine features, somewhere between hope and fear, and I realized that we were approaching that which we had been dancing around since he had first appeared in my consulting room twelve hours before. I took a deep breath and began again. 

“I am still angry, Holmes, but I meant it when I told you this afternoon that I never was happier to see anyone in my life—dear God, I missed you so.” He smiled faintly and placed his hand over mine which still rested upon his knee; we sat in silence for what felt like a very long time. Our hands pressed together felt strange and new but yet inevitable, as if they had always been that way, and my fingers ached to grab hold of his own, to press them to my chest and hold him there forever. 

Just as this notion formed in my mind, our trance was broken by a loud clatter—one of us had dislodged my medical kit from its perch and sent its contents scattering about the floor. I cursed softly and made to begin picking up my instruments and papers, but was startled by the way Holmes leapt out of his chair as if burned, looking around wildly and smoothing his dressing gown compulsively. I got to my feet and looked at him, puzzled. 

“Holmes, what is—”

“I am also very pleased, I’m sure, to be back in London, my dear Watson,” he interrupted sharply, his tone shattering whatever fragile understanding had stretched like blown glass between us. 

“Holmes, I don’t—” I tried to tell him that I did not understand, that he did not need to be alarmed, but he silenced me with a formal hand pressed to my shoulder as he glanced at the clock.

“I suspect I have kept you from your bed, Watson, and that you are only too courteous to tell me so,” Holmes said coolly, his face painted with an unconvincing smile. For a moment I fancied I was looking at the waxen bust rather than the man himself. 

“And for another thing, I myself have had rather a taxing day,” he continued brightly, apparently concerned about getting to sleep for perhaps the first time in his life. “Goodnight, my dear boy.” 

And with that he withdrew into his bedroom, leaving me standing in the sitting room among my scattered medical instruments and his bloodstained clothing, following the thread of our conversation back in time in my head as if to discover what had killed it and finding only a tangled knot, like so many sutures, of which I could make neither beginning nor end. 

I retired to my old bedroom, which was rather bare but still largely as I remembered leaving it when I fled Baker Street after returning from Switzerland three long years before. I had left some of my old things behind and I rifled though them until I found an old nightshirt; I pulled it on wearily and fell into bed, unable to shake the feeling that something had gone terribly wrong. I fell into a hazy, discomfited sleep, still thinking of the brief pressure of Holmes’ hand pressed against mine.

I dreamt I was on a great ship sailing across a broad expanse of dark ocean which seemed to blend into the grey sky—I was searching for something, but I did not know what. Slowly, over the roar of the wind and the rush of the waves and the calling of the seabirds I heard a voice, someone calling my name like an Odyssean siren, and I somehow knew that if I went toward it I would be pulled in and drowned. But the sails changed course of their own volition; a great cliff rose up out of the fog and I listened with horror to the crash of a waterfall where river met ocean. The voice grew louder—it was familiar—it was Holmes. He was silhouetted against the sky at the very top of the massive black cliff, clearly poised to jump and I called out for him, screamed his name as loud as I could, but my ship was sinking, pulling me into the endless black waves and all I could do was keep my head above water and listen to the panicked voice of my companion which still cried out for me. _Watson! Watson!_ the voice cried, and I tried to call for Holmes in response, feeling that I could save him if only he would hear me. _Watson, please! Watson!_

“Watson! Can you hear me? Watson!” 

I jolted awake, startled that I continued to hear the high, frightened voice of my friend until I looked up and saw him standing over me, his hands clutching my shoulders painfully as he peered into my face, apparently quite anxious. The candlelight gave his countenance a ghostly, otherworldly aspect, and I shuddered at the memory it recalled of the siren-like voice I had heard in my dreams. 

Holmes relaxed, although only minutely, when I met his gaze, and he managed a watery smile. I wondered why he had appeared in my bedroom, thinking perhaps someone from the Yard needed us to clear up some details regarding the evening’s events. 

“What is it, Holmes?” I asked, my voice shaky from the remaining anxiety I could not quite control.

“Nothing,” he responded softly, gazing at me with a sheepish expression. “It is only that—you were calling my name. I was frightened that you were hurt.” He released my shoulders and then perched himself lightly on the edge of my bed, still staring at me intently. I felt color rush to my cheeks in embarrassment. 

“I am quite alright, Holmes—just a nightmare,” I said, my senses slowly returning to me. I sat up. “I am sorry that I disturbed you. You should go back to sleep, you must be exhausted.” 

“No!—that is, you did not disturb me,” he said quickly, his voice high and unsteady. He looked at me for a long moment, his grey eyes like quicksilver in the candlelight. “But I will leave if you wish me to go.” 

He looked unspeakably sad and something twisted in my chest as he stood up to leave me, a dull ache that shot through my heart and crackled through my veins—I reached out and seized him by the wrist, clutching at him desperately.

“Please,” I whispered pleadingly, scarcely recognizing my own voice. I tugged at his wrist helplessly, my fingers curling around his pulse point as I pulled him back down to sit upon the edge of my bed. He complied, settling himself next to me on the narrow bed, but I still could not bring myself to release him, not when I could feel the reassuring thump of his heart under my fingers. He looked at my hand, still clenched desperately around his arm, and then back at my face, a sorrowful smile on his arresting features. This was our second chance, and he knew it.

“Oh, Watson, my dear Watson—you do not have to plead so. I have never wished to be anywhere other than by your side,” he said, his honeyed voice seeming to float to me through the orange candlelight.

I watched his fine, arrogant features, transfixed by the way in which they twisted so naturally into the fierce, honest aspect of helpless affection—I had known, I had always known, but seeing it so clear upon his face shot a devout pain into my heart. But something of my pride intervened, barricading my sympathies even as they threatened to spill out over my lips: my suffering heightened, the loneliness sharper and more acute because I finally realized why it was that his absence had wounded me so. Poor fool that I was, I loved him. Grief and selfish agony welled up like poison in my throat, and I had the words out before I was conscious of having thought them.

“But…but you left me,” I said brokenly, the words barely choked out between the waves of misery which wound their way around my throat like a noose.

“I did,” Holmes replied softly, stricken. 

“I am sorry I could not help you,” I said rather more coldly than I intended, pulling my hand from his wrist and letting it rest in my lap, fidgeting with the bedclothes.

“Watson—when have I ever disdained your companionship? What do I not owe you? You have been no less than perfectly faithful and devoted, and I the only way I could fathom to return such a debt was to spare you from the danger and discomfort of my investigation into Moriarty’s criminal contacts—to give you your life.”

“It is not a gift that I wanted, under such circumstances,” I said softly. Holmes’ eyes widened minutely and his fingers twitched as though to reach out for me, but apparently he thought the better of it and remained still. 

“I could not take you from your life, could not risk you knowing, you have seen what Moran is capable of,” he said defensively, but he softened as he took a breath to continue. "I should never have done it if I had realized how it would grieve you.”

“What else would it have done but bring me grief, Holmes, to lose the one—to lose you?!” I cried, my eyes streaming with angry tears unshed. “When I lost you I lost _everything_! All I had left was to write up the remainder of our cases—for three years I sat alone at my desk, hearing echoes of you in every scratch of my pen, the roar of the Reichenbach Falls forever in my ear.” I wiped at my face angrily and dropped my voice to barely a whisper, hoarse and fragile. “ More often than I dare admit, I wished that I lay amongst the moss and the rocks in the mists of that dreadful place—finally back at your side.” 

The way that Holmes flinched sent a piercing pain ringing through my chest, but having finally told him the truth I could not bring myself to regret it. The silence hung like fog in the air, seemingly pierced only by the tiny flickering of the candle Holmes had brought with him—our chance had not been smothered, but the silence had to be broken. 

“John,” Sherlock whispered brokenly. “I—I am—I have always—”

“It’s alright,” I murmured back, seeing in his eyes what it was he wanted to tell me, what he had always wanted to tell me. “Please don’t be afraid.” 

Holmes looked back at me, momentarily stunned, but he must have seen in my eyes what I saw in his, for his face softened into an expression of helpless tenderness. He closed his eyes for a long moment, inhaled deeply, and then proved himself a braver man than I.

“In vain I have struggled,” he said, shaking his head. “It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

“You—you love—” I cried, but I could not complete the thought. Knowing that such regard lay in the silent corners of his heart was one matter, but watching the man himself, hearing Sherlock Holmes make such a declaration, was quite another matter. I felt that I could not breathe.

“Yes,” he said, smiling slightly at my amazed speechlessness. “I have been too proud to tell you how profoundly, how desperately I need you—even though I rather thought you knew, you deserved to hear me say it. I have spent three years learning what a wretched fool I have been, and realizing that I would give anything to make things right again.”

He reached for my hand, capturing my fingers in his own, and I realized what it had meant for him to show me so much of his heart when I felt the fine tremors shuddering through his graceful hands.

“You have done so,” I said softly, bringing his hand to my lips and pressing a kiss along his bruised knuckles. He closed his eyes, shaking his head as if he did not believe me. 

“You have come home,” I continued, trying to make him understand. 

“I have used you most cruelly, Watson,” Holmes said bitterly, without opening his eyes. I sighed sorrowfully.

“Perhaps,” I conceded thoughtfully. “I have certainly suffered, my dear, but what joy can be felt without sadness? And you! You suffered for three years in order to protect me—and now you have returned. You were hardly on holiday these three years, Holmes, and broken hearts can be mended.” I smiled it him tentatively.

“You are more than I deserve,” Holmes admitted quietly. 

“No,” I said fiercely, shaking my head. “I am not. Do you not see? I love you, Sherlock Holmes. I am as great a fool as any man ever was in love, it has taken me so long to get here. There is nothing I would not do for your sake, nowhere I would rather be than here, with you. I love you.” I had always known it, and to say it felt like a great veil had been removed from my eyes—everything was brighter and more vivid and more beautiful, and I was certain I had never seen a sight lovelier than Holmes’ silver-blue eyes shining with tears as he looked at me for what felt like was the first time.

“How long?” he asked softly.

“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation for my regard for you. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I  _had_  begun—and I was without you just after that.” The realization struck me like lightning, after three years of regrets, we were here, we had arrived in the promised land I thought never to reach—but I almost never got the chance, I had wasted so much time. The thought snapped something in my heart, and I felt my throat tighten with emotion. 

“I always thought…” I continued thickly, “I always thought that I had time, but then you died and I had never—” 

I do not know quite what it was that I had meant to say, I had not even time enough to finish the thought before I began to weep. I reached for my handkerchief and made to turn away from him, ashamed, but he reached out for me instead, pulling me tenderly into his arms.

“Please, John, do not conceal this from me,” he said soothingly, sliding down into the bed clothes and bringing me with him so that I lay curled into his side, my head resting upon his chest. "Not anymore, not when you do not have to.” 

“Oh,” I gasped, overcome, burying my head in his neck. I felt him press a kiss onto the crown of my head and I held him even more tightly; he began to stroke my hair with the same light, delicate touch that I had seen him employ to pluck the strings of his violin.

“It’s alright, John,” he said into my ear so I could feel his warm breath on my neck. "I promise, my dear, it will be alright.”

“Thank you,” I replied, smiling against his neck as my tears began to subside. “Thank you for returning to me.” Nothing seemed more important than that.

“It is I who should be thanking you,” he replied quietly. “But my dear, we could go round in circles in this manner forever, and I can think of many more profitable ways we could engage ourselves.” I could tell from his voice that he was smiling. 

I looked up at him, sitting up slightly so I could see him properly, and he seized his opportunity to press a kiss to my forehead, each of my cheeks, and then finally my lips, soft and sweet and sublime. 

“You are right,” I breathed, grinning broadly. “More profitable, indeed.” He laughed and kissed me again, his joy palpable in the tender brush of lips against mine, warm like sunlight and soft like rain. He began to stroke my hair again and I laid my head upon his chest once more, my tear-reddened cheek pressed fondly against his silk dressing gown. 

We lay there together in silence for some time, watching as the darkness outside began to fade into dawn, the watery sunlight filling the room with the blushing glow of a spring morning. Fatigue weighed me down and I began to drowse, falling through the haze of sunrise and back into the darkness of sleep—where the hoarse siren cries and the roar of the pounding waves still waited for me. I jolted out of my drowsy trance with a cry, for a moment certain that the grey waves and the lonely silhouette was the reality, and the gentle comfort of Holmes’ arms the dream. I sat up frantically, searching for confirmation that this miracle had not been the cruel illusion of a mind weakened by grief. 

“What’s the matter?” Holmes cried, frightened. I wrapped my hand around his wrist, feeling for his pulse, his eyes widened and then narrowed again, and he understood.

“Please,” I whimpered, tears threatening to fall anew as I clutched at him desperately.

“John, my John—do not grieve yourself so,” he murmured, bestowing gentle, desperate kisses into my hair as I trembled in his arms. “I love you and I have always done, shall always do…the period I endured without you has already been rather more than I could bear, I should rather die than repeat it.”

“Holmes!” I admonished, stricken by his flippant air, and I shifted in his arms, trying to look at his face. 

“Hush, darling,” he said soothingly, placing yet another kiss on my forehead and returning to his stroking of my hair. “I did not mean it that way—I only wanted to say that I shall never leave you again. I am afraid you are stuck with me.”

“Sherlock,” was all I could manage, and he laughed happily, his warm breath whispering through my hair. I let my anxiety and grief melt away, surprised out of me by his impertinence and carried away by the sound of his laughter, finally realizing that I did not have to be afraid anymore. 

“We have time now,” Holmes said softly, reading my mind. I lifted my head from his chest and pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw and then settled back down, curling myself around him. Happy fool that I was, I loved him. I loved him and he knew, and I knew, and the rosy light of the coming dawn knew, and that was more than enough.

“Yes,” I agreed, smiling against his neck and tangling my fingers in his nightshirt. Finally, without the viciousness of misplaced pride and through the grace of a Providence I can only assume must be merciful, we had time. I slept that morning—and nearly every night since—wrapped in Holmes’ arms, and I felt I would live forever, the alchemist’s elixir of life finally realized in the nectar of his sweet kisses. I dreamt that first morning of us together, walking across a broad moor whose dappled expanses seemed to stretch up into the lavender-tinted sky; he slipped his hand into mine and I lifted it to hold his fingers against my heart, loving him without fear as we wandered together amongst the soft green grass and the heather and the gentle buzzing of the bees. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed! You can find me on tumblr @darlingdetective if you're so inclined.


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